In his article on reciprocality, he doesn't say he folds it. Did you read that somewhere else? I would think always folding QTs is -Ev.

Check out post 25 from the attached thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...=reciprocality

Just realized you started the attached thread ZuneIt!

I'm not trying to be mean, but it sounds like you've just read some books and memorized some of the lines/sayings in those books, and now you're just spouting them off in this forum in similar situations.

While I agree that books are very helpful for learning, as I started my learning through books, the best way to learn is to actually think about the situations themselves.

So, instead of quoting what someone in a book said and giving it off as authoritative advice, think about the situation and why that play may or may not be good. The more variables you can consider when making your decision, generally the better that decision will be.

Again, not trying to be mean, just offering some constructive criticism.



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Thank you.

Yes, I've read books and found them generally unhelpful for low limit HE. So, I'm trying to bridge the gap between what I read and what makes sense for this game.

Just trying to learn and I appreciate the input.

If you want an aha moment. Try this for few short sessions.

Do not limp!!!!! Ever!!!!
Come in for a raise or fold.
Until you actually try it. The effects of it don't sink in.

That includes calling an open. No flatting preflop Fold/raise.

You will instantly see effects. Also see you stack doesn't get bled off. You will see bigger jumps in stack, usually in the correct direction.

Then cbet close to 80% of flops. (Not if we go 4 ways though)

Obviously neither of these are optimal. As you will be folding some good hands in late postion, but it will 100% be profitable at almost any 1/2 game in america.

Go to upswing poker and download there hand chart. Study it. It is a great base to start from.

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Hand is well played up to this point.

Turn is a Check / Eval.

Thanks Mikko.

Lots of good advice and some I'm still pondering.

I've only been playing for ten years ... first at limit, and later no limit. I struggled at no limit and hired a coach, Bob Ciaffone. Bob had me tighten up considerably, bet bigger, and be much more aggressive in certain situations. The result? When Bob coached me, I was running about $17/hr over a 2,000 hour period. Good, bad? I dunno. But I was usually a winner and enjoyed it.

Then, I took some time off due to a corporate transfer.

So, I'm back and playing. I play mostly $1/$3 and sometimes $2/$5, but my games are not capped. It is not uncommon to sit at at a $1/$3 and half the table is over $1000 deep. Folks normally buy in for a lot. I recently sat down with 250 blinds and was the short stack at the table. ugh.

I'm trying to reconcile a lot of what I've read, what worked previously, and the current conditions of the game in question.

QTs is a good example. I was told to never play this hand UNLESS it was LP and we could get it to 4 players. I see now we are raising with it. Alternatively, I was also coached to bet until the field was reduced to no more than 2 players. If that meant raising to $35 or $45 pre flop, so be it.

A lot of what I read here is different that what I am familiar with. And yes ... raise or fold is part of that. (I think I got flamed for arguing this elsewhere, but it does force you to play better hands. Ciaffone actually argued in favor of the limp, but only under certain conditions, which often meant a fast fold post flop..)

I am not a professional. But there's a lot that has changed in the last couple of years since I played a lot so I'm trying to sort that out and play a style that works for me.

Thanks again. I'll try to post more intelligently in the future.

What's helped me tremendously with my game is Crush Live Poker, by Bart Hanson. Check out his website and listen to some of his podcasts. He's a great resource for low stakes no limit.

Another thing that's helped is watching some random YouTube videos; I'd recommend Phil galfond, Alex Torreli, Doug Polk, and also the poker guys. All of them break down hands and go through the thought process you should employ while playing.

Sorry for the derail, but for the actual hand, I belive a c/c line is best. As mentioned before, you don't want to be blown off your equity and you don't mind free cards. You can decide to value bet the river if the situation warrants it.

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Wow, you've played a great amount of live poker. It sounds like your coaches never took the training wheels off you though. Your writing shows you deferring to an authority giving you a basic starting guide. I was, & am in some part at that point myself, but a time must come where you start seeing yourself as the authority in your strategy and hand planning. That happens when you look at the game from the biggest view possible. Right now, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees, though making $17/hr over ~50k hands ain't shabby at all. You should be proud of that. If you still have coaches, delve deeper into the reasons they're giving you the advice they are. Inquire more on adjusting their "rules" to particular villains. You should always be able to rationalize your decisions thoroughly. If you need to fall back on a quote from some external authority, you're not understanding your own behavior and could be erring in the process.

Since you like reading books, I'm going to recommend "Professional No-Limit Hold'em, Vol. 1" as a starting guide. All of the frequent posters here who offer some backing of their claims seem to follow the underlying structures discussed in the book. Some might be a review, but it'll introduce you to planning your hand start to finish. If you read GobbeldyGeek's posts, you'll notice he always has a plan in mind when deciding to play and act.

Furthermore, read through Concepts of the Month in LLSNL as well as Micro Online Poker sub. (Since you've posted before about betting for info, try reading this COTW on betting.) Ovbviously online poker is a bit different as the competition is stronger, everyone tracks others with absolute precision, and opening bets are usually just 3x, but the fundamentals are the same and those COTM break down the game in fantastic mathematical detail. It's a goldmine of information.

Lastly, as a personal recommendation, I'd suggest dumping $50 into an online account to play some cheap-o HU games. It'll train you to adjust your range & actions to your opponent.

Turn action

$2/5 casino, full table

Hero: TAG image, aggressive in LP, and active. A couple players already commented that I 'always' raise my button.

Table: Pretty high action. Lots of money shipping around. Three straightforward TAGs, one strong/creative TAG, one super deepstacked LAG, and the rest limp-calling passive donks. Most players 200BB+ deep. Effective stacks around $1400.

Hero QT
1 MP limp, Hero raises to $20, CO calls, btn calls, BB calls, limper folds.

Flop ($80) QT4
BB checks, Hero bets $50, straightforward TAG calls in the CO, btn folds, loose-passive BB calls.

Turn ($230) A
BB checks, Hero bets $125, CO raises to $275, BB folds
I think betting was a mistake. I agree with most commenters that I should have check-called. In game, it seemed the second diamond improved my situation and I should bet for value. Retrospectively, the second-nut flush draw only serves as a bail out in case the action blows up. The ace puts a number of hands that call the flop ahead of me and limits to number of worse hands that can call a bet. I had a hard time telling if I was being results oriented or if check-calling was the better play

Now that a mess has been made, what happens next? Fold, call, raise? If hero calls, what's the plan for diamond and non-diamond rivers?

Pretty gross spot, but I think given the immediate price, the stacks left behind, and your equity, you have to call here.

Disgusting situation. I think we're stuck calling here & folding to most 1/2 pot+ donks on non-diamond rivers. If we flush up, we must commit, but I wouldn't bet over 1/2 pot if checked too on river. Maybe we'll get lucky and bink a Q.

I'm also in the C/C turn camp.

No man, checking this turn is just a poor use of your equity this deep, and defies what your perceived range should be doing with a station and a face up TAG behind especially with a relatively active image. It won't be easy to evidence how checking improves upon the EV of betting, are we hoping for a check through?

Anyway AP you have two options. Fold now or call and lead any AQT4D riv for about 600.

Does the CO 3bet AQ pre? Does a straight forward guy call the flop with AT? Would he raise KJ otf (or 3bet it pre)? The most logical hand that hurts us the most is AQ.

it's such a small minraise that we can call since a quarter of the deck will improve us, and there's always a chance he did this with a BDFD and a pair or he's just playing creative.

As played, call. (I can't believe anyone would recommend bet/fold turn. I would rather bet/jam, but check/call would have been best.)

Pre is good, bet flop, check turn. What are we hoping to get value from? KT? QJ? Way more combos that beat us than we beat. We do have a good amount of equity tho, so check back and lets hope we realize it.

AP, never folding turn this deep. Probably folding non-diamond rivers (sizing-dependent) and 100% raise/calling a diamond river.

I like your turn bet because of the loose passive (fishy?) BB. Check/call is another option, but I rather bet myself to get value without risking that it`s checked through. BB could very well keep calling with worse hands (AJ,KQ,QJ,J9) if he is fishy. CO just has two raise combos (AQ,KJ) and should just fold most of the time. He probably calls with AJ.

After the raise we obv call for that price. What`s the river?

Just as a thought, what about shoving turn here? His raise is quite small, not really indicative of KJ here. I think a shove should get him to fold almost all of the hands he's raising for thin value here (44/A4/AT+), which we certainly don't mind, plus if he does have KJ, we still have about 25% equity.





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Shoving over would be spew. Baluga theorem has saved me so much money over the years - and if he's only raising better than TPTK, which of those hands can we realistically beat? Do we have a read that this player is good enough to go for really thin value? I don't think we do, unless I missed something.

If we shove, A4 and AT might fold, true, but I think AQ is making a crying call, 44 is basically never folding with the redraw, and KJ is fist-pump snapping us. The mistake was betting turn. Now that we're here, we need to call and hope for a helpful river. I'm betting all diamonds, Qs, and Ts, sometimes betting straightening cards, and checking everything else.

River?

You're an experienced player. Being unable to calculate that 0ev is frequently the best you can do in this spot is a common 2-5 pro's mistake.

Too many KJ combos to get the folding frequency you need for a +EV shove.

Only if you weigh them equally. The idea is that KJ is heavily discounted (I think this is true for a large majority of the 2/5 population) given what is essentially a minraise. It really looks like AQ here which I think most solid TAGS would fold to a shove in this spot since it really looks like we have KJ when we decide to shove over top.

Straightforward TAG reg might only raise KJ in this spot, in an action game, when an action player bet bets, with 1200 behind.

Backing up a step, theres value to be had before any betting took place on the turn. Once raised, flatting with 1 nut out+Rio+no implieds+No one is ck-c bricks makes even an even money turn peel for 150 a -EV proposition when you factor in the riv. Also, I'm not prepared to a hand in the middle of my range into a bluff with a full compliment of KJ available - no matter how it's sized.

Bet-folding turns is an uber-exploitative/should-be-easy in a spot where you don't yet have any information that V is raising w <QT.

River action

$2/5 casino, full table

Hero: TAG image, aggressive in LP, and active. A couple players already commented that I 'always' raise my button.

Table: Pretty high action. Lots of money shipping around. Three straightforward TAGs, one strong/creative TAG, one super deepstacked LAG, and the rest limp-calling passive donks. Most players 200BB+ deep. Effective stacks around $1400.

Hero QT
1 MP limp, Hero raises to $20, CO calls, btn calls, BB calls, limper folds.

Flop ($80) QT4
BB checks, Hero bets $50, straightforward TAG calls in the CO, btn folds, loose-passive BB calls.

Turn ($230) A
BB checks, Hero bets $125, CO raises to $275, BB folds, Hero calls

River ($680) 6
Hero checks, CO bets $400
I decided to call the turn. I figured I had decent direct odds to hit 16 non-nut outs. The river missed and I don't see any purpose to betting. I check hoping for a checkdown.

Fold, call, or raise?

At the table, I bet targeting the BB for value. I didn't seriously consider the CO's flop calling range, much to my chagrin.

I looked at my equity vs. CO flop calling range. I assigned him a flop calling range of sets/JJ/AQ/KQ/KJ/QJs/QTs. My equity sits around 48%. Not really enough to bet. Really none of the worse hands can call another bet on the turn and only better hands continue, imo.

Fold river. Villain can easily have KJ, 44, maybe TT (only 1 combo) or a better 2 pair here like AT, or even AQ. Also, I think most villains here will check back a lot of hands he could potentially bluff with, like QJ or JT (which you block some combos of anyways). Villain might have a hand like 9d8d, but that's pretty much the only hand that you beat, which he probably doesn't play this way anyway.